Initial Setup

• 1). Place the external SATA drive on a flat, stable surface near the computer.
  
  
• 2). Plug the USB cable into the drive, and into an available port on the computer.
  
  
• 3). Connect the power adapter to the external enclosure and plug it into a surge suppressor or battery back-up.
  
  
• 4). Insert the hardware device driver disk included with the external USB enclosure.
  
  
• 5). Click "X" in the top-right corner of the window to cancel any prompt to automatically perform an action when the drive is connected.
  
  
• 6). Click "Start," then "Computer" to see a list of installed drives. Locate the new drive and make a note of the drive letter assigned to it for future reference. This will be needed when saving files to the drive or performing a back-up. A new partition will need to be created, or the disk may need to be imported as a foreign disk if the drive does not show up under "My Computer."
  
  
• 7). Click "Start," then "Control Panel." Click "System and Security" if the drive does not show up in the Windows Explorer. Click "Create and Format Hard Disk Partitions" under the "Administrative Tools" section. Right-click on the drive, then click either "Import Foreign Disk" or "Create Simple Volume" depending upon the contents of the drive. Follow the prompts. Only one of these two choices will be available.
  
  
• 8). Click "Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media" in the toolbar near the clock if the drive needs to be unplugged for any reason when the computer is running.
  
  

Saving Data

• 1). Click "File," then "Save As" from any application to save data to the new drive. Go to the new drive letter from the pull-down menu, or from the choices on the left, and give the file a valid file name. Click "OK" or "Save" to save the file.
  
  
• 2). Open Windows Explorer by clicking on the Windows Explorer icon next to the start button, or click "Start," then "My Computer" to launch it from the start menu. Right-click on a user file or folder and click "Copy" from the menu. Go to the new drive letter and right-click in the open space. Click "Paste" from the menu to copy a file or folder to the new drive.
  
  
• 3). Click "Start," then "Control Panel," then click "Back Up your Computer" from the "System and Security" menu to launch the back-up utility. Click "Set up Backup" to launch the Windows Back-up Wizard. Click on the new drive to choose it as the destination for the back-up files. Click "Next" to continue. Click "Next" to let Windows choose the files and folders to back-up, or click "Let Me Choose" to back-up a user selection of files and folders. Click "Next" for more options or to review the settings. Click "Save Settings and Run Backup" to begin the back-up process.